Alternative Energy from Around the Web

December 06, 2006

The Arizona Corporation Commission has voted on the final rules for implementing a 15 percent renewable energy standard by 2025. The rules state that 30 percent of the renewable standard is to be derived from distributed energy resources - small-scale technologies located close to where energy is used, such as roof-top photovoltaic projects or solar hot water projects

Solar Energy Stocks

Because of the Democratic majority of both the House and Senate as a result of the last election, there is some belief among stock market analysts that solarenergy companies should do well. The following are a list of the pure plays ...

Terrestrial Solar Cell Surpasses 40 Percent Efficiency

... December 7, 2006 Spectrolab has achieved a new world record in terrestrial concentrator solar cell efficiency. Using concentrated sunlight, Spectrolab demonstrated the ability of a photovoltaic cell to convert 40.7 percent of the sun's energy into electricity. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) verified the ...gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine

Council on Foreign Relations -"National Security Consequences of Oil Dependency"

With little media fanfare as of yet, a major report by the political heavyweight think tank Council on Foreign Relations was recently released. "Independent Task Force Report #58 - National Security Consequences of Oil Dependency" (pdf warning) paints a somewhat more urgent picture of our energy situation than most other oil and energy research coming out of Washington. Though there is no mention of the words "Peak Oil' in the 90 page report, to the astute reader it is clear that this group of experts, led by ex-CIA chiefs, John Deutsch and James Schlesinger, understand that the era of cheap energy is ending, and that our dependency on oil has major geopolitical implications with few easy answers. The bombshell in this report is the admission that the United States will be unable to achieve energy independence, and should focus instead on reducing our dependency on oil. Though this concept is nothing new to readers of this site, coming from a highly respected mainstream think tank (CFR), recommendations such as conservation, gasoline taxes, and gasoline rationing might be an uncomfortable but necessary wake up call to some of the conservative (cornucopian?) decisionmakers in our nations capital. Indeed, this report may be the next integral step of political eye-opening (the first being the Hirsch Report last year) that hastens our national efforts towards addressing our energy addiction.

This post is a general summary of the report, along with some interspersed comments and conclusions.